Yes, finally I succumb and write something on the US election. The inspiration was one of my favourite writers, Hunter S. Thompson – see his . excellent article on IOL. A colleague knows a supposedly accurate clairvoyant who’s predicted a Kerry win. With nothing better but a clairvoyant and blind hope to go on I’m… Continue reading Gonzo predicts the US election
Month: October 2004
MySQL 4.1 and FreeBSD 5.3
MySQL 4.1 has been released as production, and it’s a big step forward. Perhaps it’s about time to update my book and start working on a Mastering MySQL 5. Also due to be released is FreeBSD 5.3 (it’s just been delayed from Oct 25 to Nov 5). The database servers at work are running on… Continue reading MySQL 4.1 and FreeBSD 5.3
Untitled
Found a great quote on Cath’s M&G blog. “Psychosclerosis: the hardening of the attitude which causes a person to cease dreaming, seeing, thinking, and leading.” Ashley Montague In my case it’s caused by interminable meetings about trivialities. Now that I’m working 3-day weeks (Tue-Thu), I find I can see by Saturday and think by Monday.… Continue reading Untitled
Defending the Fox
After my post on Banking and Open Source in South Africa I’ve been made aware of the Defending the Fox site, which lists non standards-compliant offenders. It’s an awful design (they say they’re changing it soon), but I like the principle, especially the ability to contact the owner. Hopefully they’ll take the criticism constructively. Here’s… Continue reading Defending the Fox
Kim McClenaghan – Revisitings
I recently bought two poetry books, both written by recent graduates of the UCT Creative Writing MA. I studied creative writing in my second and third years at UCT as part of my BA – a course I enjoyed more and found more valuable than my IT studies. In spite of the intellectual snobbery that… Continue reading Kim McClenaghan – Revisitings
Visited Countries
Thanks to a link I discovered at Forest Blog, I’ve created a Visited Countries image. I’ve visited all of 4% of the world’s countries. And that includes a bus drive through France on my way from Holland to the UK. At least I excluded Brazil – Sao Paulo airport is not something I want to… Continue reading Visited Countries
Banking and Open Source in South Africa
Now that I’m finally moved off the Windows2000 machine I’d been using at work (all of the developers have been using Linux a while, either Gentoo, Mandrake or Fedora, as have most of the editorial staff, so it was disgraceful that the IT Manager who got everyone to run on Open Source hasn’t been doing… Continue reading Banking and Open Source in South Africa
MySQL certification
A number of my staff are doing the MySQL certification. When I came up with the idea, I planned to do some training, but working 3 days a week doesn’t leave me much time to do anything besides sit in meetings anymore, so that hasn’t happened. But, I’m sure they’ll all do well in the… Continue reading MySQL certification
Creative Commons Licence
I’ve decided to use a Creative Commons licence for my blog. Coincidentally, Tectonic has just published an article comparing the GNU GPL and the creative commons licenses. So as not to repeat everyone else, read the Creative Commons website on why to use a creative commons licence.
Media ethics in South Africa
Recently the great debate amongst South African media organisations has been on whether to show/link to the beheadings in Iraq. It all began when SABC showed the video in their Xhosa news. The producer was suspended and the SABC fined. Later, Vincent Maher, a lecturer at Rhodes University, ran a poll amongst his final year… Continue reading Media ethics in South Africa